All Progressives Congress (APC) Media Campaign Council, says it has uncovered a sinister plot traceable to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Governor Godwin Obaseki, to compromise identified officials of the various agencies carrying out key roles and facilitate comprehensive rigging agenda in the September 19 governorship election.
A statement by the Media Campaign Council made available to journalists in Benin city, the state capital, on Thursday, stated that APC had received credible reports from a top source that PDP members rose from a meeting held in a hotel at a secluded location in Benin City after finalising the plot. It was revealed that the plotters agreed to earmark N1bn cash as the ‘gift’ for specific officials of the various agencies involved in the prosecution of the election in the state, with an extra N4bn set aside to purchase voters across the state on the day of the election.
Warning officials of the various participating agencies not to soil their impeccable image and a track record of probity and fairness by accepting PDP’s mess of pottage, the campaign council maintained that all such designs by the PDP shall be exposed, so the party should desist from artifices that could compromise free, fair, and transparently credible polling exercise on 19 September.
“Our party, the APC, has reliably gathered that PDP has concluded plans to scuttle free, fair, credible and transparent governorship polling exercise on the 19th of September by ‘settling’ some officials with a whopping N1bn and by buying voters with N4bn. Each voter is pencilled to receive N20,000 on the day. The money is being planned for shipment into the state through the airport. With us are the detailed information including those who held the meeting, the venue of the meeting, identified officials of the various agencies to be purchased and the channels of disbursement of the cash haul.
“Obaseki’s seven-member House has just approved his N1.5billion loan from a new generation bank to be applied for election, so also is $75m world bank loan meant for education. While APC will win the coming election on a fair and level playing ground without reducing itself to such dirty crookery as is being hatched by PDP, it is enough to declare that the rejected party’s rigging plans will avail them nothing, as the electorate has seen through the deceit of Godwin Obaseki, who spent entire four years piling excuses on why people’s welfare remains secondary in his estimation.
“We, however, call on relevant agencies of the federal government, including the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to mount structures to scuttle the grand lie, which PDP is planning to tell on the 19. The move is a potential strategy to set the state on fire by unleashing every imaginable brand of mayhem and thuggery in the state.
“This is also a call on the National Chairman of INEC to warn officials of the commission to resist this godless temptation and maintain their integrity. If PDP has planned to rig, INEC should stay off and steer clear of offering their support. Rigging and vote buying is a stamp of authority for a party that has already lost out in the scheme of things in Edo state. Being entirely aware of its lack of requisite popularity and acceptance amongst the populace, the only short cut is to buy all buyable. Such a lie cannot stand”, APC said.
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